Inspired in part by the writings of Marcus Garvey, Kwame Brathwaite co-founded the African Jazz Arts Society and Studios (AJASS) popularized the phrase “Black Is Beautiful” in the late 50's and early 60’s. “Black Is Beautiful” is one of the most important political and cultural ideas of the twentieth century. Brathwaite and his older brother Elombe Brath (1936 - 2014) did their part to spread this idea through Brathwaite’s writings and photographs and the activities of the two organizations they helped co-found: AJASS and Grandassa Models.
Kwame Brathwaite’s photographs were specifically intended to shape the course of American visual discourse. His photographs foreground how artistic and political vision can affect change in popular culture and how popular culture can affect change on culture at large. The subjects of Brathwaite’s carefully crafted photographs invoke the power of a range of objects, such as books, musical instruments and artworks. The dress and hairstyles of his subjects point to their sense of themselves, while the environs of his subjects direct the viewer to a community of artist activists—writers, painters, playwrights, fashion designers and musicians. Brathwaite’s work demonstrates the power of photography as an essential cultural tool in the dissemination of new political ideas, its power to stage visual rhetoric and its ability make language visible.
The 1961 Garvey Day Celebration’s “The Miss Natural Standard of Beauty Contest,” was a catalyzing moment for the brothers who saw clearly that the same models who eschewed make-up and wore their hair “natural” for the contest would, by the following Sunday (when they came to pick up their prize money), have straightened their hair in order to feel comfortable going back to school, work, and their everyday lives. Brathwaite and the other members of AJASS felt that African Americans needed to feel comfortable in their own skins and to be proud to display their natural beauty. He and Brath led the charge to establish a studio and office space next to the Apollo Theater for AJASS, and started the Grandassa Models (named after ANPM leader Carlos Cooks’ term for the African continent, “Grandassaland”).
AJASS’s first fashion show, “Naturally '62,” headlined by Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, and initially planned as a one-time event, proved so popular that a second sold-out show was held that same night to accommodate the crowd. When traveling to other cities for concerts, AJASS members Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach helped spread the word and make contacts with other progressive organizations that lead to “Naturally” show bookings in their respective cities. In February 1963, AJASS followed with shows at Robert’s Show Club in Chicago and Mr. Kelly’s in Detroit and continued to spread the “Black Is Beautiful” theme nationwide.
Brathwaite’s regular reporting and pictorials for leading black publications such as “The Amsterdam News,” “City Sun,” and “The Daily Challenge” beginning in the early 60's, helped set the stage for the Black Arts Movement and the Black Power movement. By the 1970's, Brathwaite was one of the top concert photographers, shaping the images of such public figures as Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, James Brown, and Muhammad Ali. Brathwaite wrote about and photographed such landmark events as the “The Motown Revue” at the Apollo (1963), “WattStax ’72” (1972), The Jackson 5’s first trip to Africa (1974), and the “Festival in Zaire” (1974, which accompanied the famous Foreman-Ali fight, “The Rumble in the Jungle”).
Throughout the course of his career, Kwame Brathwaite has photographed such international figures as Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah—his namesake and he still maintains a relationship with a range of African political figures, including Sam Nujoma, the first president of Namibia. Due to the importance of Kwame’s work on political and cultural events, he was invited to the inaugurations of Sam Nujoma and Nelson Mandela, as well as the swearing-in of Namibian president Hage Geinbog in 2015.
Kwame Brathwaite (b. 1938 Brooklyn, NY, d. 2023, New York, NY) is the subject of the upcoming solo exhibitions at Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (2025, Little Rock, AR); Centre de la photographie de Mougins (2025, Mougins, France); and Mead Art Museum (2026, Amherst, MA). Kwame Brathwaite's work is currently featured in "Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture" (Art Galleries at CalState-Northridge, Northridge, CA) and "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys" (High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA). Brathwaite's work will be included in the upcoming group exhibtions, "Drawing Differences" (Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA); "Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica" (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL); "When Langston Hughes Came to Town" (Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV); "Black Photojournalism" (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA); "Photography and the Black Arts Movement" (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; travels J. Paul Getty Museum); and "Ideas of Africa: Portraits and Political Imagination" (Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY). Kwame Brathwaite's work was recently featured in the solo exhibition, “Kwame Brathwaite: Things Well Worth Waiting For” (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; traveled ArtCenter College of Art and Design, Pasadena, CA). A major touring exhibition on Brathwaite’s work, “Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful” premiered at the Skirball Cultural Center (Los Angeles, CA); and traveled to the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA); Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, SC); Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI); (Reynolda House, Winston- Salem, NC); New-York Historical Society (New York, NY); and Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (Birmingham, AL) A monograph of the same title, produced by the Aperture Foundation, was released May 2019 with essays by Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University and Tanisha C. Ford, Associate Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware. Brathwaite’s work is featured in the touring exhibition, “Black American Portraits,” which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles, CA); and travels to Spelman College Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA); and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis, TN). Brathwaite’s work recently appeared in “This Tender, Fragile Thing” at Jack Shainman Gallery (Kinderhook, NY); Brathwaite’s work is in the permanent collections of Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX); Detroit Institute of the Arts (Detroit, MI); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); Block Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL); Northwestern University (Chicago, IL); Pérez Art Museum Miami (Miami, FL); Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando, FL); Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, SC); National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC); National Museum of African-American History and Culture (Washington, DC); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA); Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI); Reynolda House (Winston-Salem, NC); New Orleans Museum of Art (New Orleans, LA); The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY); Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY); Museum of the City of New York (New York, NY); The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, NY); Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA); Mead Art Museum (Amherst, MA); Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, NH) and Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah, United Arab Emirates). Corporate collections include JPMorgan Chase Art Collection (New York, NY) and Sidley Austin LLP (New York, NY). Brathwaite’s work has recently appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, New York Post, New York Magazine. Kwame Brathwaite was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1938. He passed away in New York, New York in 2023.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065 in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.